#discovering gyaru was an emotional experience 4 me

[pinkaditty]

How have you been doing, pink?? Are you recovering well?

Also I saw your tags in that one thing we did abt things we could talk abt for an hour and I almost forgot to ask: how did you get into gyaru??

hihi aya i am recovering well!! not in much pain anymore besides my legs bc they were nearly crushed in the accident but im otherwise okay! my immune system is total dogshit though so i was immediately hit with a bad cold after most of my pain had left and im STILL recovering from that cold. im so tired of being ill

and please call me mal or malibu, ur a trusted moot atp

also i read ur tags on ur post 4 the same thing and im soso curious. please. what do u know about celtic mythology....

anyways. me yapping about how i discovered gyaru. sorry! tw 4 mention of racism.

im just gonna immediately dive in2 the gyaru thing: it started when i was in my first year of college. i hadn't learned of it earlier and almost every day i wish i had discovered it sooner but so be it! i think it was in a random twitter thread about j-fashion that caught my interest. iirc gyaru was the most interesting out of all of them so i decided 2 do some more research on that one.

relevant background: by this point in my life, as all late teenagers do, i was working on completing the mesh that was supposed 2 be my sense of self and i hadn't really decided on a style that was perfect 4 me. i had styles i liked and disliked but nothing that really felt "perfect". i had robbed myself of allowing myself 2 be girly in most of grade school out of the internal need 2 be "different" and simultaneously being depressed, so i was going through my fashion discovery phase a bit late.

anyway, upon going through threads abt gyaru, i found myself just wanting 2 try it out 4 fun. id found myself more attracted 2 girly things lately, so it was hime gyaru that caught my eye first. as cool as yamanba, tsuyome, and ganguro seemed, i just didn't think i quite fit the bill 4 those, so i half-heartedly settled on hime gyaru. the label of gyaru felt right, but being hime gyaru in specific didn't feel like the best-fitting glove 4 me. this is why 4 the first month or so of being in2 gyaru, i wasn't super emotionally invested, but i found myself wanting 2 start anyway. my wardrobe slowly shifted and began 2 include things along the lines of hime gyaru outfits, which were cute! but after a while grew old far quicker than id anticipated. at first, i was dissatisfied, thinking that maybe this was just a fashion phase. despite that, i still decided 2 stick with gyaru, because i liked it, but i still couldn't put my finger on what substyle suit me best.

i should probably clarify that the reason i wanted 2 stick with gyaru so badly was probably because of the history i had found behind it after some digging. gyaru was inspired by many, many things, but an important factor was the style of western african american women in the 70s-80s. bold makeup, long nails, showy clothing, and lots of accessories were in pretty strongly then, considering the surge of black pride after the jim crow era. as a black woman myself, i was immediately inspired. it can be hard 2 interpret when you've never experienced it firsthand, but an entire life of rejection, assumption, and limitation simply due 2 a feature about your skin that you cannot control really sucks, so i, at that point, was also learning how to take pride in my own skin after years and years of being subjected to questionable, at best, and abusive, at worst, treatment from my surroundings. i was totally in awe that something made by people i descended from had become so popular that it inspired one of the biggest J-fashion movements ever. plus, i liked the droop makeup. it was a cute twist. and something really filled my heart upon discovering that japanese women created this style 2 break free from limiting beauty standards. no more conforming. no more coloring in the lines. they wanted 2 escape, and that was admirable. i wanted 2 escape, too.

after a while, a switch flipped. im not sure how or when or why, but a switch flipped. suddenly the girly, frilly, cutesy vibe of hime, roma, and himekaji no longer attracted me. i wanted bold colors, bold nails, bold makeup, and a bold attitude. i wanted 2 do away with the classic girliness of hime and instead veer towards more crass, wild, and colorful styles. "get wild and be sexy" was all i thought about. i wanted 2 get wild and be sexy and stop conforming 2 whatever the white-dominated society of america deemed appropriate. and suddenly! my favorite substyles were yamanba, ganguro, banba, tsuyome, and onee! suddenly i wanted 2 tan my skin a bit more! suddenly i liked hibiscus flowers and plumerias and wanted them in my hair! suddenly my favorite braiding hair color was blonde! suddenly i had the confidence 2 wear bikinis! it was like a tidal wave of change. once the wave had cleared, it had left an entirely new beach in its wake, and that beach was me.

2 be honest, i think the switch was triggered by realizing i didn't have 2 conform 2 the girly standard if i didn't want 2. i could just. be me. and accept the truth that it didn't matter if people liked me or not. at least i was being me.

not much else 2 tell besides that! i changed my wardrobe, started getting long acrylics (i can't function now if they're not xtra long), practiced makeup, decorated my room, changed my attitude (this took some time), and changed the way i type! the whole reason i use "2" and "4" is 4 the sake of the 'textspeak' vibe and because it's cunt. that and i use a lot of gyaru language, but with my friends specifically. im working on integrating it in2 my general lifestyle.

i still have a lot of steps 2 take, but gyaru lives in my head at this point. its been 3 long years of self-discovery, and each step has been perfect. this style is perfect. even before i discovered gyaru, when i would do my makeup 4 fun, i would draw my eyeliner downturned and connect it 2 my eye, like a droop! in a way, it was meant 2 be.

anyways that's that. i promise there's more between the lines here but im tired and its late and i wanted 2 get this ask out b4 too long. just know that if there was a gyaru version of the scarlet rot that Melania from Elden Ring has, i would have it. if you want more details, feel free 2 ask, but they won't be answered immediately... still writing a romeo x reader fic in which he teaches u makeup and that's currently sucking up most of my commitment.